CTV News gets first look at new southern Ontario Amazon facility

After two years of construction, Amazon can see the finish line at its robotics fulfilment centre (YXU1) in Southwold Township, Ont.

“We're pretty close, less than five weeks away,” said Himanshu Kalia, general manager of YXU1. “Our construction crew is working very hard to get everything ready and going. As you can see the building is in the last phases of final touch ups of getting things ready, so we’re pretty excited for that.”

YXU1 will be a sortable fulfilment centre, where Amazon employees pick, pack and ship customer orders such as books, toys and housewares. Employees will work alongside the latest advanced Amazon Robotics technology to process up to 750,000 items a day while leveraging the latest innovations that drive efficiency and safety.

CTV News London was the first to be given a tour on Tuesday, where Kalia showed off the four areas of operation at the two-million sq. ft. plant.

“It starts at inbound operations where we get the product from multiple vendors who sell on Amazon’s website,” said Kalia. “We get the products in trucks, unload them and through conveyors it is routed to receive stations where we put them in totes which flow up the building.”

From there it’s onto floor two where they use the robotic storage platforms. Pods store the inventory, and they are moved by robotic drivers which bring the product to an associate.

CTV News London received a first look at the new Amazon fulfillment centre in Elgin County on Aug. 22, 2023. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)

Next, it is time for packaging.

“This is where each item gets packed into boxes, and they are put on conveyors where they are sent to the ship dock area,” said Kalia. “The last step in the fulfilment process where packages are sorted going to different destinations. We put them in pallets, where they are loaded to trailers where they go downstream to logistics, delivery and sortation centres.”

Broccolini Construction has been working on converting the former Ford plant site into the four-storey Amazon centre for the past two years.

“We're in the final one per cent here,” said Dennis Morwood, field coordinator with Broccolini Construction. “We're just tightening the last couple bolts helping Amazon get everything put together here. We started constructing in 2021 in the middle of COVID, 750 people on site today just really push through made it happen."

According to Morwood all that is left is a final walk through for health and safety to make sure that all associates are protected and safe, as well as paint touch ups and fully testing the systems.

CTV News London received a first look at the new Amazon fulfillment centre in Elgin County on Aug. 22, 2023. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)

YXU1 will have more than 1,000 full-time employees when the plant opens Oct. 1.

They have already hired most of the team managers, and about 100 full-time employees who applied online.

“Most of the hiring will happen in September, and the first of October is the date where we open up where full sets of inventory will come into the building from our vendors and we'll start our receiving or inbound operations,” said Kalia.

He added, “Our workforce staffing team is actually actively working in terms of marketing the jobs and posting the jobs online. Folks who are interested in working at Amazon can go to Amazon Canada hourly jobs online and apply for the role.”

Positions will start at approximately $20 per hour.